We have about 160 days to go before we launch The Courageous Church on January 11, 2009. After serving on the pastoral staff of a great church in suburban Atlanta for several years, my family wanted to visit other churches in our city and region before we launched. After visiting around for a few weeks, my entire family loved Buckhead Church so much that we decided to stop being nomads and stay there until we launch. I’ll be visiting a few other churches between now and then, but we’re learning so much where we are that we are confident we’ll launch much stronger because of our time there.
As I said yesterday, it hasn’t been the obvious things that have hooked us at Buckhead Church (although they help), but it has been the surprises that have really sealed the deal and taught us some major leadership lessons.
Buckhead Church does the SMALL THINGS that churches could easily look past or ignore, very, very well. Here are some of the small things that I have noticed that we’ll try to duplicate in our church.
All of my children received unique, personalized hand-written postcards with very cool art on one side. They have received follow up postcards as well and look forward to checking the mail with me because of it. We now have these postcards hanging up on our refrigerator. We’ve been branded and it onl
When you drop the kids off for children’s ministry on Sunday morning, they have a volunteer waiting with a big bucket of Starbursts and the kids get to get a piece or two. We’re not big on candy in our house, but this hooks the kids.
Families with children get preferential parking. With my big ‘ol family and a pregnant wife this courtesy means everything to us.
The church has a gazillion parking attendants (and volunteers inside the church) that make sure you always know where you are going and have what you need.
The host and the speaker use language and illustrations that are very welcoming to guests and non-Christians.
The entire facilities are meticulously clean.
They run video announcements before the service time begins. These often have humor and are very informative. This also allows the service to flow better once it begins.
Easy to read directional signs are everywhere (but so are helpful volunteers).
No seat is a bad seat. No seats behind poles, the sound board, etc.
I love Buckhead Church. My entire family loves it. Even my toddler, EZ, loves it and he’s not easily wooed! But we love the church for a lot of unexpected reasons. I already knew Andy Stanley was one of the best teachers in the world. I expected the technology to make me go oooh and awww. I anticipated amazing facilities with well designed curves and ingenious quirks. All of those things didn’t disappoint, but Buckhead Churchhas surprised me. In those surprises I have learned some priceless leadership lessons that I hope to take with me into our church plant as we launch in about five more months! Over the course of the next few days I am going to share some of those lessons with you, but I encourage you to visit the church for yourself the first chance you get. If you come to study as a pastor in need of ideas or a person in need of worship – you won’t be disappointed.
Leadership Lesson #1 – Be Willing to Change (In BIG Ways if Needed) to Fulfill Your Mission
The outside assumption about a "successful" church like Buckhead Church is that it has certain people and programs (and principles) in place that make it so successful and that if you put similar people and programs in place in your church that you will have success. This is true to a great degree, but Buckhead Church does not act like a church that has arrived. It is a living, ever-changing organism that experiments, takes risks, and is willing to change in big ways to fulfill its mission. I say this because a church that became a carbon copy of Buckhead Church last year may find that the church has changed significantly since then.
It’s not that what the church did last year is no longer any good (I’m sure it is), but Buckhead Church has shown me that they have an insatiable desire to have the very best answers for the people that they serve TODAY and hope to serve TOMORROW. I have seen this play out in three practical and surprising ways.
7/22 has been a major part of the Buckhead Church/NorthPoint brand and movement for years. It reaches thousands of single young adults from throughout Atlanta and is, by all visible standards, wildly successful and popular. It is being temporarily shut down and retooled so that it can better fulfill the mission of the church. This move showed amazing guts and determination to me because most of us hang on to what appears to be successful with a very tight grip. The leadership team believes strongly that they can do better. I believe them.
My family attended several KidStuf services when we first began attending Buckhead Church and we were totally blown away. It is a supercool, hilarious, engaging gathering for kids and their families to attend together for about 30 minutes after each Sunday morning service. It’s been going on for years. The church just announced major changes to the "very successful" format this past week. Instead of being a weekly service, it is going to become a monthly service so that the staff can better respond to the parental demand for resources and guidance at home. Why tinker with what works? The answer is so that you can do something better.
On the first Sunday we attended a morning service, my wife and I were shocked to see and hear a very good rapper open up the service. This brother wasn’t some sorry guy that was trying to rap, he was really good. As I looked around and saw the people sitting all around us, I had doubts that most of them listened to any hip-hop, but it hooked Rai and I right away. Whether the intent was to hook people like us or to expose the congregation to other ways we can express our love for God, it immediately displayed for me that the church was interested in changing the way people think about church.
Is your church willing to change to fulfill its mission? Have you created a culture where your team feels confident to critique and analyze everything – including any sacred cows you may have?
After another day of exams and tests, my wife seems to be completely healthy and the baby seems to be as normal as any child of mine can be! I am thankful to God and thankful for your prayers and support. We will still be taking this day by day and know that we have risks ahead, but for now…
Let us praise God together!
I’d also love to hear any old school praise reports that you may have!
I love my blog and all of the online social networks that I am a part of. All of my online friends are like a new family for me . Let’s have a virtual group hug.
However, nothing means as much to me as taking care of my wife during this difficult time that we are in. We nearly lost the baby yesterday and will have a pretty high risk pregnancy from here on out.
I am going to be laying low online for the next few days as I work hard to take care of Rai and the kids. The title of my blog is "Courage and Corn Pops" because I blog about the balance between living a courageous and adventurous life with the fulfilling call of family life. This will be a Corn Pop week and I would love your prayers and support.
I will be updating my Twitter often @ www.Twitter.com/ShaunKing and will read your comments regularly. We’d also love your support of our "$20 and a Prayer" campaign which you can find here on the blog.
By the time we reach the first episode of The Cosby Show, Clair Huxtable had already earned her law degree, joined a successful practice, and had four children. Since I learned nearly everything I know about how to raise a big family from Clair & Heathcliff Huxtable (read Donald Miller’s "To Own a Dragon), I wasn’t quite prepared for our major emergency this morning.
At about 2:30AM, I had to take my pregnant wife to the emergency room. She was bleeding in a major way. Our three kids were asleep. What do you do? Wake ‘em all up and take the crew with you? Call friends that live in the burbs and have them come over? Do you wait for them to get there? Do you call an ambulance? I ignorantly even thought of leaving the kids in bed alone while I ran wifey to the doctor.
We ended up asking a life-saving neighbor (thanks Eric) to come over and sleep on our couch while Rai and I booked it to the emergency room. Once there, we were shocked at how long it took to receive medical attention. It was nearly 5AM by the time we saw a doctor. After a painful exam, the doctor determined that Rai had indeed had a miscarriage, but ordered an ultrasound just to follow up on his exam.
For nearly two more exhausting hours we chatted and prepared how we would tell our children that we wouldn’t be having a baby after all. Finally during the ultra-sound, the ultrasound tech showed us, clear as day on the monitor, our stubbornly fearless two inch long baby…regular heartbeat and all. Needless to say, I halfway felt like punching the inaccurate doctor in the nose (since you don’t get refunds on doctors visits) for adding a few loops to our emotional roller coaster.
By this time, I had to rush home and leave my wife at the hospital to relieve the neighbor so he could go to work. Since our gate remotes to our neighborhood have not been working for several days, I then had to park a 1/4 mile away from our house, scale a sharp-top fence like Jack Bauer (at least that is how I imagined myself in my head) and walk the rest of the way to my house.
About two hours later I woke the kids up to go pick up my wife (we made the long walk to our car). They have ordered very strict bedrest and close observation at least for the next week. Things are obviously very fragile, but we are a close-knit couple and family – we’ll make it.
Thanks for all of your prayers….we need ‘em. Since you feel really bad for us now, it would really help my wife (not) if you bought me and Gary some front row seats to the upcoming UFC 88 in Atlanta! Just kidding…I think!
Some of our BIG NEWS…My blogging buddy and church planting comrade, Gary Lamb, called me to let me know that God really placed on his heart to give our church a big ‘ol Dually truck to tow our portable church trailer later this year.
This was 1 of 3 items on our ridiculous wish list and is a major encouragement to us. We’ll now use ALL of the funds that we would have used to purchase this truck to go toward the development of Courageous Kids – our Sunday morning children’s ministry.
He said the truck is beat up, but will last forever and is strong enough to tow a house. That floats my boat!
MoreBIG NEWS…I think we have chosen our Sunday morning service location. We’ll be working on the contract this week and I’ll keep you posted. I am so doggone amped!
Even More BIG NEWS…we are going to do what we call a "Soft Launch" of our church in early October. More on that in the days ahead.
I am so thankful to the crew that we had come out to paint our offices yesterday! We got a lot of work done in a short period of time. Check out our pictures here.
If you wanna reach and connect with the unchurched or unsaved, it’s great to get them to come to a church service, but many people would be much more willing to come to a service project like we had yesterday. Try it!
We didn’t make it to the National Black Arts Festival yesterday because of rain. The fam ended up picking up lunch @ Little Azio’s and went to go see Wall-E.
I enjoyed what I saw of Wall-E, but my knucklehead 22 month old son would not chill out no matter what we bribed him with. We won’t be taking him back to the movies for a very long time!
Almost as soon as we got back from the theater my pregnant wife became outrageously sick. Please pray specifically for her. I’m OK, but she has been EXTREMELY sick for over a month – every day all day – and has gotten pretty doggone discouraged.
I am seeing a Urologist for a "V" later this year so that we won’t have any more kids (unless we adopt). Sorry if that is TMI!
I watched Elite XC (a mixed martial arts promotion on CBS) last night. Some really good, really exciting fights. I am a UFC fan, but last night was very entertaining from start to finish.
I was absolutely amazed at how much was done in about an hour in the 11am service @ Buckhead Church this morning. Here is what we had…
The service never felt rushed and actually felt like it was much longer than an hour.
One challenge is that Buckhead Church makes this look so easy that most attendees may actually believe the illusion of ease. It obviously isn’t easy to pull off a service there and the level of planning that must be taking place blows my mind.
I stopped counting volunteers this morning at Buckhead Church at 49,325 and it seemed like the church could use some more.
Later this week I am going to begin sharing some key lessons I am learning from my time there.
A few months ago Grace United Methodist Church offered The Courageous Church free office space in the community center next to their church right in our target area in downtown Atlanta. A group of us (Courtny, Erin, Deacon, Chu, Rob, Myself) got up early this morning to clean the walls and throw some primer up over the dark pink walls before we mack it out later this week. We had great conversation and got a lot done. Here are some photos…
About to watch TV with wifey, but I can’t wait to share some really cool and important news with you tomorrow about The Courageous Church! See you then.
I love my family. My wife is about 11 weeks pregnant and has been sick as a dog. Our whole crew (Me, Wifey, Kendi, Tae, EZ, plus one in the oven) usually goes somewhere together in the city about once a week, but we’ve been hanging in the house since Rai has been so sick!
Today we’re going to walk ourselves down to Centennial Olympic Park to hang out @ The National Black Arts Festival. We’ll get some good food, hear some great music, see some cool art that we won’t buy, and laugh at the few weirdos that you always see @ these types of events.
My camera has fresh new batteries so if I see some comedy I’ll put it on my Twitter!
Randy Pausch – the great father, husband, motivator, and Carnegie Mellon professor passed away this morning. His extremely moving "Last Lecture" has been seen around the world. More than anything else, I learned from him that we should really value every single second we have on earth -if we know the moments are or last moments or not.
If you haven’t see this video or read this book, they are life-changing.
If you’ve seen the lecture, what did it speak to your heart?
I love using Twitter and think it’s probably an even better way to get a glimpse into my life than this blog. However, some type of system glitch yesterday caused a lot of us to lose some followers and friends.
If you wanna check out my life on Twitter or need to re-follow me there click here.
It’s 1:58 AM and I can’t sleep. My mind is being haunted by the spirits of children that you and I allowed to starve to death. They are real. They are starving...until they die. We did nothing.
I posted this AMAZING video a few months ago, but feel led to post it again. I might post it every day until you get mad, stop reading my stupid blog, and actually do something like the people in this video. I am hastily making some plans to build a Plumpy Nut Initiative that will save some kids so that I can properly repent for the ones that you and I let die. Plumpy Nut is a miracle food that is saving kids like you’ve never seen before. Watch it here.
We are praying to God that a school, or theater, or some place in downtown Atlanta donate us the space we will need for Sunday morning services when The Courageous Church launches on 1-11-2009 so that we can use those funds to save kids like the ones you saw in this video.
When we launched The Courageous Church website last month, we included a Wish List on it with a few outrageously ridiculous items that we believe will be donated to us! Call me crazy! I’ve been called a lot worse!
We just got word that someone WHO DIDN’T EVEN SEE OUR WISH LIST, is about to knock one of these items off of our list!
God is amazing and this passage in James 4 is becoming reality for us.
Our greatest desire is to use as many of the resources that come through our community of faith to change the lives of people throughout Atlanta and around the world. We have seen miracles happen before and believe that by expressing these dreams that they will happen. Here are our three biggest needs!
1. Free Meeting Space in Exchange for our Donation to a Phenomenal Cause
We would like for a theater, school, or other facility downtown to donate the space we will use for our Sunday morning services starting on 1-11-2009. We will then donate the regular cost of the space to go toward our Plumpy Nut Initiative to feed kids that will probably die if WE DON’T HELP!
Plumpy what? Plumpy Nut is a modern day miracle food…read about it and see a video on my blog here.
2. A Free Portable Church System
Because our church will be in a temporary location, we will need this type of system to set up and break down every Sunday. They normally cost between $50,000-$100,000 (or more), but we know that churches regularly sell or give away these systems when they choose to have a permanent location. For $50,000 we could hire six part time staff members and for $100,000 we could hire the six part time staff members and two full time staff members that would focus on helping our vision of Building Courageous Followers of Jesus that Love God, Love People, and Prove It come to pass.
We’re a city church and folk just don’t drive big, manly pickups in downtown Atlanta. We need a strong pickup truck (like a Dually) to tow our trailer from week to week and we’re not picky…as long as it runs, we’ll make it work! We will pledge to use the cash value of this truck to go exclusively to the development of our Courageous Kids Ministry.
Over the past few days, I have been detailing how The Courageous Church will approach some hot-button issues. The conversations are still going on with the posts on homosexuality and women in ministry. Join us.
Today, I’d like to deal with how our church will approach politics. I love politics. I was Student Government President in undergrad at Dear Old Morehouse. I have worked for political campaigns. I have made donations to political leaders that I strongly believe in. I follow local, national, and international politics like a hawk. Several of my close friends are politicians. However, how our church will approach politics is not fed by my personal passion. Pastoring and church planting is not my hobby, it is what God has called me to do and it’s imperative that I not infuse all of my personal quirks into our church.
With that said, let me break down our approach to politics and how I balance my voracious appetite for all things political with being a church planter. My view on this has been greatly influenced by these Perry Noble blog posts here and here. Andy Stanley has also shown me that we can address politics directly without being political with this amazing sermon series – Letters to the Next President.
As I said on my previous posts, The Courageous Church is strongly guided and influenced by our mission to Build Courageous Followers of Jesus that Love God, Love People, and Prove It. On our website you will also find Six Guiding Questions that are like a set of core values. I want to note these things because everything our church does and will do is really filtered through our mission and values. If it doesn’t fit, we will acquit! With that said:
Our church will not endorse political candidates and we will not allow political candidates to campaign at our church. Other churches may do this and do it really well, but it just doesn’t fit who we are and who we want to be. In my opinion, it takes more courage to not cozy up to politicians than it does to make them your BFFL.
I will not publicly endorse political candidates. I have already endorsed Barack Obama, but did so before I really had a change of heart about this issue. My job is to reach people with the Gospel of Jesus and endorsing political candidates alienates way too many people that may not support "my" candidate. Besides, he will already be President by the time we launch the church on 1-11-2009. :)
Our church will aggressively stand for people and issues that others have forgotten about or are too afraid to touch. These issues will not be the typical, overly politicized wedge issues like abortion or even health care because these issues already have a glut of people and campaigns that are content to argue for the next 30 years.
Pastors, particularly in a large city like Atlanta, should be very knowledgable about the important issues of the day and shouldn’t have their head in the sand. You should vote and encourage others to vote, but that is about as far as it should go.
What do you think about churches and politics? I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions on this topic and am anxious to know how you feel about our approach.
Bought my wife a $15 iTunes gift card…here is what we picked out for her. Some old school, some new school, some slow jams, some workout and dance around the house with the kids songs, and a few tracks for our inner gangsta.
Rihanna – Umbrella Sleepy Brown – Margarita Mary J. Blige – Just Fine Remix Solange – I Decided SWV – Weak SWV – Anything Blackstreet – Before I Let You Go Mint Condition – Pretty Brown Eyes Mint Condition – What Kind of Man Would I Be Maxwell – This Woman’s Work Maxwell – Ascension Young Dro – Shoulder Lean Lauryn Hill – Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You Mary J. Blige – Sweet Thing D’Angelo – Cruisin
Any of these songs bring back memories for you? Or are our tastes so different that our list looks like Greek to you?!
FYI – We always get clean versions of tracks so the kids can jam with us.
Yesterday I blogged about how The Courageous Church hopes to approach the issue of homosexuality. Today I want to discuss how our church will approach the issue of women in ministry. Several months ago I discussed this topic at great length here and will borrow greatly from that post today. I am very passionate in my belief that it is a gross error to prohibit women from particular areas of ministry such as Senior Pastor.
In the name of full-disclosure I want you to know that both of my daughters list "Pastor" as dream jobs, my mother-in-law is an ordained Pentecostal minister, my great-great grandmother was a Pentecostal minister, I have served under a female pastor, I go to a school that ordains women at every level of leadership, and both of the church planting organizations that I am affiliated with – ARC & Covenant – ordain women at every level of leadership. So, to say that I am personally invested in this issue is an understatement.
With that said, and the details on my thoughts listed here, let me tell you how our church will approach women in ministry in the simplest way I know how. The Courageous Churchwill welcome and encourage women to serve in every level of ministry – from Senior Pastor, Executive Pastor, Youth Pastor, Tech Pastor, Worship Pastor, ministry directors and leaders, financial overseeing capacities, elders, deacons, or virtually any other role you can think of or imagine.
Let me call on my glorious Morehouse education to better illustrate our views….
De Facto is a Latin expression that means "of the fact" or "in practice" but not ordained by law.
Many churches that I admire and have relationship with basically allow
women to serve in every area of leadership, but disguise this by
calling them Directors and not Pastors. This is De Facto support for women in ministry, but, in my opinion, expresses a lack of courage.
De Jure is a a Latin expression that means "by law" or "the set standard."
The Courageous Church will have De Jure support for women in ministry. In other words, our support for women in ministry will not be undercover.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, concerns, criticisms, etc.
This week I am going to be addressing a series of critical questions that I receive regularly in my email inbox. I live in Downtown Atlanta and The Courageous Church is launching in the downtown/Midtown area of our city in 173 days. Since beginning our $20 and a Prayer campaign last week, the question I have received more than any other has been:
While I think all churches need a very clear, nuanced answer to this question, it is doubly important that a church that claims to be courageous and is located in the area of our city with the largest population of GLBT men and women have a clarified approach to the topic and not simply pretend like it doesn’t exist.
If you get a chance to check out our website @ www.Courageous.tv and read some of our guiding questions and values, you will better understand where I will be coming from. Feel free to leave your comments and questions.
Five distinctive things about our church will guide us in our answer to this question.
Our mission as a church is to Build Courageous Followers of Jesus that Love God, Love People, and Prove It. (Homosexual men and women are still people.)
The first guiding question of our church is – What Did Jesus Do? (Jesus loved all people – particularly outcasts – while simultaneously calling them to a higher standard of living)
The second guiding question of our church is – What Does the Bible Say? (I feel pretty strongly that the Bible is clear on the issue of homosexuality.)
Our church feels called to take a stand for issues and people that others have forgotten about or too afraid to touch. (Homosexuality is one of those issues in our culture that most churches are afraid to touch with grace and intelligence.)
While the issue of homosexuality is relatively important, it will not become a distraction from our mission and from issues that we deem to be in critical need of attention – like salvation, the world hunger crisis and slavery.
Here are my thoughts:
It is my deepest desire that ALL PEOPLE feel welcomed and loved as a part of our church – including homosexual men and women. We are fleshing out what that really means and how we prove that we love all people and not just say that we love all people. This is the benefit of being a church plant that still has time to create new culture before launching.
While we can debate it until the cows come home, it is my strong belief that the Bible is clear that homosexuality is a sin. Jesus did not address the issue of homosexuality in the Gospels because it was not an issue in need of clarification for the culture He lived in.
I do not believe that all gay people are born that way and have had enough conversations and counseling sessions with gay men and women to know that some people become gay over time. I also believe that some people are born with a genetic propensity to be gay that is hard or nearly impossible to overcome. I have seen young children (that were not abused or "exposed" to homosexuality) that seem to have major issues, sometimes biological, with gender confusion, etc. It’s real.
With that said, I ultimately view homosexuality as one sin in a world full of sin. My job is to love sinners and build them into courageous folowers of Jesus that Love God, Love People, and Prove It. I am a sinner. My sin is not homosexuality, but I have struggled with pornography and had a period in my life where I struggled with exaggeration and honesty in the name of status and comfort. These things can lead to our undoing as well.
I would not ordain or marry any men or women who have what I view as any obvious issues of sin, particularly if they are not trying to overcome this sin. The challenge is, though, that this immediately isolates gay folk that can go down the street to the church that embraces them and does not even view their homosexuality as a sin.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, insights, and criticisms on my thoughts. Let the conversation begin…
I am blown away by how well our "$20 and a Prayer" campaign is going. We’ve launched it exclusively online and feel like we’re not just raising money and bathing our church in prayer, but we are creating a lot of buzz and excitement about what we’re doing in the process. Win-Win.
To hit our goal [...]
Most of my prayers are for God to open a door. I am unashamed to say that I regularly ask God for ridiculous opportunities and connections and still have childlike faith that He hears me and cares enough to act.
However, I want to thank God today for the doors that He has CLOSED in my [...]
Hello! I'm Shaun King - a 30 year old husband, father, pastor, and grad student (in that order) in downtown Atlanta.
I am the Lead Pastor of The Courageous Church- a brand new, diverse, exciting church in the heart of downtown Atlanta! Before I put on my SuperSuit and go live out my call in the city, I fix my five kids a bowl of cereal, change diapers, pack lunches, and give my wife a kiss.
This blog is all about the tight rope that I walk between Courage & Corn Pops!
